This invention relates to an adhesive cartridge in an office product system for binding a plurality of sheets of paper into a soft cover book, manual, publication, report, etc., and more particularly, the present invention relates to a disposable, non-refillable adhesive cartridge that applies flexible, strong, cold set glues to the spine and edges of the book block. This cartridge is used in a desktop, easy to use office system for binding a plurality of sheets which will produce "lay flat" "perfect binding" on demand where short runs (of even one book) may be produced economically and efficiently resulting in a book with a flexible spine which opens flat, without damage to the glue layers that hold it together.
Book and document binding technologies are ancient measured against today's technological standards. Most of the existing processes evolved from circa 1940's technology, predating the use of today's microprocessor based "smart" systems.
Equipment and technology for book preparation and manufacturing is generally represented by either commercial or trade binderies for in line manufacturing of "high quality" volume runs and by a variety of office products manufacturers for casual in-house binding applications. These in-house binding applications use manual or electronic punch and bind plastic, wire spiral systems or alternatively hot-melt glues to make office reports and publications.
Commercial binderies offer a wide variety of binding capabilities and deliver high quality. However, these commercial binderies require minimum production runs that are typically in the thousands of bindings to offset the setup costs of that production run and to support their significant investment in expensive in-line production equipment. For this reason, commercial binderies do not accommodate a vast majority of the soft cover books, manuals, publications, reports, etc. bound today.
Conversely, existing desktop binding office equipment is relatively inexpensive but the technologies are labor intensive. These technologies generally involve a binding process requiring that holes be manually punched in the plurality of sheets of paper followed by an assembly stage where a plastic strip or strips, or plastic or wire binding is wound or otherwise inserted into the holes in a manner that secures the plurality of sheets of paper together. These technologies result in bindings that, while secure, have reduced paper margins, tend to "mousetrap" shut (i.e., books that won't remain open), and/or depend upon bulky plastic combs and/or metal clamps to hold pages together. These methods do not provide a readable, printable regular book spine. With the vastly improved quality and efficiency of producing printed documents, the present quality and process of binding no longer satisfies the quality requirements for binding the increasingly sophisticated output from the combination of desktop publishing software, and in-house laser printer generated output, as one example application. This new generation of business is demanding traditional high quality commercial bindery type binding from a desktop on demand system.
Specifically, today's marketplace requires a desktop binding system capable of delivering professionally bound books, manuals, publications, annual reports, newsletters, business plans, brochures, etc. with the following features: an office product footprint similar to the desktop computers, photocopiers, and printers (i.e., a desktop book binder); an automated system capable of binding up to one inch thick books (or approximately 300 pages automatically in under one minute); short "on demand"runs of even one book to be economically performed; binding of publications that lie flat and remain open without the use of cumbersome plastic, spiral or wire; production of a flexible, printable regular book spine which opens flat, without damage to the glue layers that hold it together; and recyclability of the publication in its entirety, including the binding.